


Promise This (be the last to kiss my lips)

by Chromi



Series: Someday, So I Believe [MarcoAce Week 2019] [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, His Soul Is Tired, M/M, Marco Is Old, MarcoAce Week 2019, Promises, Rebirth, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 04:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi
Summary: Reincarnation, some called it, some who unwittingly got too close to the truth. When the vessel perished the soul was tossed into a new one, strung along it’s sparkling new wire, and tolddance, little human, dance!





	Promise This (be the last to kiss my lips)

Time.

A mere concept, as defined by some scientists, rather than something substantial. Fluid, non-linear, shifting, naught but an illusion, succinctly summarised as simply _change_.

In theory, something through which one should be able to pass like the sea; never bound by a single heading, free to travel at will.

But that was not the case for humanity. No, they danced along the threads of wire that Chronos spun and urged they perform upon for his pleasure, bumping blind into one another in their everlasting race towards their certain deaths. _Their _paths were linear for they knew no better. They knew not - nay, not even an inkling - that there were other paths they could take. Choices they could make. Ways to step from his web and free-fall like trapeze artists through the mists of uncertainty, nimble hands clasping onto a new thread that presented itself below.

A new line on which to dance.

A new opportunity to present, to try again, to capture his notice this time around, surely. For why else did Chronos keep them all playing this game, performing this never-ending musical of rehashes? Why, then, did the God of time force them all into what could only be called a perverse case of ground hog day?

Why, someone tell this poor bastard human _why_, were they all forced to repeat their lives endlessly, never the wiser? _Reincarnation, _some called it, some who unwittingly got too close to the truth. When the vessel perished the soul was tossed into a new one, strung along it’s sparkling new wire, and told _dance, little human, dance!_

And dance they did.

Never remembering. Never remembering the lives they lived through with each new body they were born into.

Except for him.

He who had lived - and could recall - hundreds of years of life. He who had been reborn into all kinds of meat vessels for the entertainment of a perpetually bored god.

Marco, as had been his name for the last 12 cycles, was Chronos’ _favorite_ because he did not dance upon his string. Marco trudged, and he slouched, and he made a tremendous cacophonic ordeal of not enjoying the lives that he lived. Really, though, how could he be expected to? Even Chronos could not fault him there. Marco was an anomaly, the single human of his kind.

What Chronos had found most entertaining for the cycles where Marco kept his name was how he searched for the same individual over. And over. And over. The man he had let die in a fiasco of a war so long ago.

The man who, laughably, _hysterically_, did not recall Marco.

Every time. Every _single _time, the man who had been called Ace had no recollection of Marineford, of being a pirate, of Marco. This pretty little human was a _good _human and he forgot, as he should, with each death. _He_, Chronos took particular pleasure in reminding Marco in his most dulcet, idyllic of tones, was never going to remember some promise made to him so many lives ago.

Oh, Marco could _try_, Chronos informed. Marco could work his damn hardest with each rebirth to make Ace remember how they had sworn on each other, promised their hearts to burn for none but the other. But Marco would never succeed. Such a shame. Such a _pity,_ little man whose memories would not die with his body, that you will never feel his love again, Chronos would smirk.

“Why do you not let me forget him?” Marco asked at the end of his most recent cycle, after passing alone in a hospital bed, no family to speak of to surround him - why create bonds when he craved none but Ace’s?

“_Why?” _Chronos mimicked, grin insidious. “You need ask _why_, Phoenix?”

“Don’t call me that!” Marco all but spat, but when had Chronos ever listened to his wishes? “That was _many _cycles ago, you cruel demon; let it rest in peace!”

“You do not forget him because I find your malaise _most _captivating,” the God crooned. “You alone are a stark light among the dreary masses. You are the first of your kind, remembering as you do. And for I to willingly give that up?” He laughed wickedly. “Do you not love your gift, sweet Phoenix?”

It was a far cry from a gift. It was the worst possible fate for a human, without a doubt, to be trapped and damned within their own mind for eternity. Chronos knew not of when Marco’s ability would go out with a puff of smoke, nor did he feel the pull of helping end it.

“Maybe this cycle, your beloved will remember your promise.” Chronos revelled in Marco’s snarl, wrapping his ethereal form around Marco’s pristine soul. “Perhaps, if you do not ostracise yourself once again, he will take notice. Think, human, _think_. What have you not tried yet? There _must _be something you can do.”

It was _fun _to give him hope. It made for the perfect sport, sending Marco back for his thirteenth cycle with the same name with that glimmer of hope.

Promises are meaningless; Chronos knew this. Promises were as fleeting and as insubstantial as the air the humans breathed.

So go, then, O’ Phoenix, and try as you might to win him back. Try, and fail, and please Chronos for all of time, for all of its meandering presence until the bitter end.

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no idea wtf that was. I'm Slightly Drunk and decided to participate in this like an hour ago. Don't judge me because idk either guys I'm as mystified as you are
> 
> Title is a line from a fucking Cheryl Cole song
> 
> PS its wild that _I can tag Chronos?????_


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